Wish Looper Channels and audio storage

York Audio

Fractal Fanatic
Vendor
I use the Looper block on a daily basis. That thing is absolute GOLD when it comes to dialing in tones. It would be amazing if the Looper Block had channels for multiple loops and could store the recorded audio when the user saves a Looper block in the Library to be recalled after the Axe is powered down.

Having Channels in the Looper would allow the player to record four individual parts or guitars... using one guitar for example could have bridge pickup chords, neck pickup chords, bridge lead, and neck lead. Or you could use four different guitars like Strat, Les Paul, semi-hollobody, and Tele. With scenes, you would be able to hear one guitar play different parts across your preset to gauge how it sounds going from clean to dirty to lead. With four guitars, you could instantly reference each one and tweak a patch to work well with all of them.

The icing on the cake would be the ability to save the audio from these loops when you store it in your Library. This way, you would be able to click Library and scroll to the guitar or loop you want to access and have those passages already performed and ready for playback.

Audio storage may be tricky, but hopefully implementing Channels would be doable. I just bought a Pigtronix Infinity Looper 3 to do this very thing and it sounds like garbage compared to the Axe.
 
It’d be nice if the USB-A port on the FM3 was enabled and could be used for a thumb drive or SSD that could contain the loops. The FX3, not having the USB-A, would be at a disadvantage at that point. :-/

If not, then it seems that keeping multiple loops in channels would cut into available RAM used for presets. Without knowing how the memory use is divided up internally that’s a guess, but it’d have to come from somewhere. Perhaps some provision for the user to be able to allocate one or two user cab or preset banks would have to be added?
 
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It’d be nice if the USB-A port on the FM3 was enabled and could be used for a thumb drive or SSD that could contain the loops. The FX3, not having the USB-A, would be at a disadvantage at that point. :-/

If not, then it seems that keeping multiple loops in channels would cut into available RAM used for presets. Without knowing how the memory use is divided up internally that’s a guess, but it’d have to come from somewhere. Perhaps some provision for the user to be able to allocate one or two user cab or preset banks would have to be added?
If a few blank presets is all it takes to free up RAM for audio, that would be amazing. Hopefully implementing channels is easier to at least get multiple audio loops in one preset even if they go away after powering down the unit.


If you put samples from your computer directly to the front input ?
That sounds like a headache to have to match input levels coming from your DAW compared to plugging your guitars straight in. And wouldn’t that mean you couldn’t play your guitar without unplugging from the DAW and plugging your guitar back into the front input?
 
Yes it’s true . Sure the possibility to store samples in the axe can be nice . But I don’t know if it’s possible .
 
+1
Pretty sure I'd love this as well, if it could be used in a live setting to say, cover some quick fills that were overdubbed in the studio. If I ever go out again, it won't be with a 2nd guitar, and I don't care for the rhythm drop-out you hear when you go to cover a guitar fill. Or something like that "train horn" sound in "How Soon Is Now." Like to be able to store that in a loop, and bring it in without needing someone to physically play it.
 
Presets are about 50 kB of data on disk. I think it'll be far more than a few.
How about a RAM warning like “delete presets to save audio?” I would gladly have 100 empty preset slots (and still have 200 more empty slots) if it meant I could store audio on the unit. Not sure if it’s even possible, but it would be awesome.
 
How about a RAM warning like “delete presets to save audio?” I would gladly have 100 empty preset slots (and still have 200 more empty slots) if it meant I could store audio on the unit. Not sure if it’s even possible, but it would be awesome.
We can SWAG this with some light math: (100 x 50 kB)/1024 = ~5000 kB of space for audio. At 24-bits and 48 kHz you need ((24/8) x 48000)/1024 = ~140 kB to store one second of monophonic audio. So you've got about 5000/140 = ~30'ish seconds of space available. Maybe a little more, maybe a little less.

Is that a useful amount of space?

(Edit: someone double check my math...I always screw up bit/btye/kilobyte conversions)
 
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We can SWAG this with some light math: (100 x 50 kB)/1024 = ~5000 kB of space for audio. At 24-bits and 48 kHz you need ((24/8) x 48000)/1024 = ~140 kB` to store one second of monophonic audio. So you've got about 5000/140 = ~30'ish seconds of space available. Maybe a little more, maybe a little less.

Is that a useful amount of space?

(Edit: someone double check my math...I always screw up bit/btye/kilobyte conversions)
The math works out.
 
Maybe an extra small software from fractal ?
When you record a sample, a “save” button, it opens another program or save the file in your computer , hm . A reader ?

Or maybe just buy a boss loopstation it will be faster 😅, you can save 99 samples in the rc5 (and the older ones too) but you probably know it already
 
We can SWAG this with some light math: (100 x 50 kB)/1024 = ~5000 kB of space for audio. At 24-bits and 48 kHz you need ((24/8) x 48000)/1024 = ~140 kB` to store one second of monophonic audio. So you've got about 5000/140 = ~30'ish seconds of space available. Maybe a little more, maybe a little less.

Is that a useful amount of space?

(Edit: someone double check my math...I always screw up bit/btye/kilobyte conversions)
Dang… 30 seconds total time isn’t much across multiple loops, so that probably wouldn’t work. Thank you for the math though! Hopefully four channels with their own loops is doable.

That would even let you assign loops to different scenes, which would be amazing.


Maybe an extra small software from fractal ?
When you record a sample, a “save” button, it opens another program or save the file in your computer , hm . A reader ?

Or maybe just buy a boss loopstation it will be faster 😅, you can save 99 samples in the rc5 (and the older ones too) but you probably know it already
I’m already looking into swapping my Infinity Looper 3 for a Boss RC-500. Hopefully that one sounds better than the Pigtronix.
 
have you tried the original infinity looper?
I haven't. The Master Volume drives me nuts on the Infinity 3 because having it on 10 boosts the signal, so you have to take it down to around 2 o'clock to get in the unity gain ballpark, but it's still not exact and adds some upper mids and top end just having it in the chain. I'm gonna swap it out for a Boss RC-500 I think. Hopefully that one stays at instrument level and doesn't affect the tone too much having it in line.

If anyone has recommendations for a looper pedal that can store loops and sounds great, please let me know!
 
If anyone has recommendations for a looper pedal that can store loops and sounds great, please let me know!
I always thought the Lexicon/DigiTech JamMan was the benchmark for this kind of thing (looper pedal, stores and plays backs loops). Looks like DigiTech discontinued it though.
 
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I like using the native instruments Maschine for bpm synced looping. It’s more of a drum machine than a dedicated looper, but I midi tempo sync it, and you can set up foot pedals for looping. Can automatically end the loop on the beat and then you can play it back, overdub, move onto another loop etc all automatically, and give the drum pads on the hardware you can start and stop all the loops, and they are all playing back totally synced in time with each other which is huge, and you can also save all that audio as well.

just picked up a akai mpc one which likely can do the same live input looping too and is stand alone hardware. Worth also checking out....

The various looper pedals are all good, but a bit harder to use, need to start and stop your own loops. Devices made more for best production/sampling just make it way easier IMO

there are also some cool iOS apps like Loopy ($5) which support multiple synced loops. Basically it’s like an expanded Roland 505 in software, has midi and Bt support etc. great bang for the buck and again you can save, load wave files etc
 
~Correct.
144 KB.

As for me, I think a better way to approach this problem is with DI files in a DAW played to the USB INPUT block. Ableton excels at this. You could even assign the different loops to different switches on an FC-12.
Unfortunately, that would be a workflow killer for my situation. So we know that audio storage isn’t practical, but is it possible to have looper channels with four different pieces of audio?
 
I like using the native instruments Maschine for bpm synced looping. It’s more of a drum machine than a dedicated looper, but I midi tempo sync it, and you can set up foot pedals for looping. Can automatically end the loop on the beat and then you can play it back, overdub, move onto another loop etc all automatically, and give the drum pads on the hardware you can start and stop all the loops, and they are all playing back totally synced in time with each other which is huge, and you can also save all that audio as well.

just picked up a akai mpc one which likely can do the same live input looping too and is stand alone hardware. Worth also checking out....

The various looper pedals are all good, but a bit harder to use, need to start and stop your own loops. Devices made more for best production/sampling just make it way easier IMO

there are also some cool iOS apps like Loopy ($5) which support multiple synced loops. Basically it’s like an expanded Roland 505 in software, has midi and Bt support etc. great bang for the buck and again you can save, load wave files etc
I also have an MPC One, upgraded from my Roland SP404 sampler that I used forever. How you liking the MPC with the Fractal set up? Any tips for someone just starting out with it but with similar desires to use it for? I never liked using a laptop with my Fractal and decided upgrading my sp404 to a MPC would be a double upgrade because I could use it to record into from my Ultra.

Hope you're enjoying your kit! I'm adding a Korg Monologue Synth to my rig and calling it a day for a bit. Less gear whoring more music making is the goal
 
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